Design board scrutinizes mansion designed for Palm Beach lakefront lot

Plans are well underway for a mansion designed for a lakeside lot that sold for just under $50 million late last spring in Midtown Palm Beach.

The design for the Georgian-inspired brick residence at 315 Chapel Hill Road, however, got mixed reviews when it was presented to the Palm Beach Architectural Commission at its most recent meeting.

The board gave the concept of the project a generally favorable reception but asked the design team to make significant changes to the plans — including scaling back the size of the house, refining architectural details and reworking parts of the layout. As proposed, the house had eight bedrooms and 17,221 square feet of living space, inside and out.

“I like the direction of it. I just think there’s just way too much going on for any one house,” Vice Chairman Richard Sammons told the design team after studying the plans.

The design of a Palm Beach brick mansion was recently reviewed by the Architectural Commission, which said the house needed to be scaled down and more variation added to the long lakefront facade, seen here. The house was designed for a family who plans to build it on a vacant lot at 315 Chapel Hill Road in Midtown.

A Delaware-registered limited liability company named Ocean Breezes 2 LLC paid a recorded $49.6 million in May for the double lot, and then crews demolished a 1980s-era house and a guesthouse there. Measuring about four-fifths of an acre and facing about 200 feet of lakefront, the property lies immediately south of the Royal Poinciana Chapel.

Nelo Freijomel, senior project architect at Spina O‘Rourke+Partners Architecture, presented the plans for the proposed gated estate during the board‘s Nov. 22 meeting.

The architect described the house as a “large, casual and comfortable family home” with a series of covered porches on the east and west sides.

In addition to the reclaimed-brick facade, details would include dusky-green wood shutters, a limestone cornice, prominent gables, copper elements, and double-hung and casement windows with frames made of mahogany and high-quality steel. The roof would be covered in simple “perfection shingles,” Freijomel said.

Although brick houses are not particularly common in Palm Beach, there a number on adjacent Pendleton Lane. Some commissioners noted that the proposed house’s brick exterior, which would incorporate a variety of decorative patterns, was a welcome change from what the board typically reviews.

The streetside exterior would face the cul-de-sac on Chapel Hill Road, which inclines toward the lake from Cocoanut Row. The rear of the house would stretch along the lakefront, north to south, and overlook a landscaped lawn as well as a pool at the south end.

The property has a direct view of the Royal Poinciana Chapel’s grand kapok tree, which is protected under the town’s rare-and-specimen tree program and is a familiar sight to pedestrians on the Lake Trail. Showcasing the tree was one of the key factors in the layout of the proposed house and the grounds, which were designed by Nievera Williams Design.

The family building the house wanted it pushed back from the lakefront, Feijomel said, out of “respect” for the kapok tree and the Lake Trail walking-and-bicycling path, which runs immediately west of the property.

The lake facade “really is kind of the ‘public front’ of the home,” Freijomel said. “There’s not very many people who will see the house from the cul-de-sac.”

Alternate Commissioner David Phoenix praised the landscaping design. “I think the landscape is terrific,” he said, noting especially the design’s “sensitivity to the kapok tree.”

The house itself was designed with “a very formalized main volume in the center” and less formal wings stretching from both sides, Freijomel said.

A detached four-car garage with a one-bedroom guest apartment above it would stand on the southwest corner of the property. A two-car garage would be attached to the house on the northeast corner.

Sammons said he liked the brick exterior and the front gates. But he was far less enthusiastic about the overall scale of the house, which he said was overly large. His views about the house’s size were echoed by others on the dais.

Sammons, Chairman Jeff Smith and Commissioner Kenn Karakul also were among those who questioned the overall layout, with Sammons describing it as the architectural equivalent of a “run-on sentence.” The visually monotonous facades, Sammons added, needed to be more sensitively broken up by design “hyphens.”

Karakul agreed: “I think it’s well done, and it’s got lots of well-done pieces. But I think you just need some more relief between the wings.”

Commissioner Betsy Shiverick added that some of the details needed refinement. She pointed to the two scalloped parapet walls punctuating the roofline, which she said seemed out of character with the house’s architecture.

“Clean it up, and you’ve got a stately home here that will really add to the neighborhood,” Shiverick said.

Sammons also described the two-car garage as “enormous,” but he acknowledged that the landscaping was “lovely” and that the plans had been “beautifully presented.”

In her remarks, Alternate Commissioner Maisie Grace agreed that the house appeared “congested” on the site. But she also said the residence was “attractive with very nice materials.”

The project had already won the support of the owners of five nearby homes. Along with the Rev. Robert Norris of the Royal Poinciana Chapel, they submitted letters of support for the house to Town Hall. The town received no letters of opposition to the project.

Commissioner K.T. Catlin said she was enthusiastic about the project from her first look at it, especially the detailing.

“I found this home to be warm and inviting. I love the color palette. It’s so refreshing to see something that is not a traditional Mediterranean or (another house covered in) white stucco” with blue shutters, she said.

In the end, the commissioners voted unanimously to defer the project, and revisions are expected to be presented at the board’s Jan. 29 meeting.

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